Opinion page editor Rick Holmes and other writers blog about national politics and issues. Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of policy, news and opinion. This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion
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Opinion page editor Rick Holmes and other writers blog about national politics and issues. Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of policy, news and opinion. This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion section of the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Mass. As such, our focus starts there and spreads to include Massachusetts, the nation and the world. Since successful blogs create communities of readers and writers, we hope the \x34& Co.\x34 will also come to include you.

Like most people – including most of the advocates who pushed it – I assumed legalizing medical marijuana was mostly a stalking horse for legalization of recreational weed. Sure, there was anecdotal evidence that cannabis helped with glaucoma, and eased the symptoms of AIDS and cancer chemotherapy, but the “miracle drug” talk was taken seriously by few people outside of NORML and High Times.

As I explore in my column today, it might turn out that the medical applications for marijuana and its component compounds are more significant than the recreational value. Neurochemical research is uncovering the endocannabinoid system, which functions through cannabinoid neurotransmitters like the type of molecules in cannabis. The system appears to be involved with memory, mood, appetite and pain control. Researchers are looking at an impressive list of ailments cannabis may help treat: cancer, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, PTSD, diabetes, mental illness, suicide.

These discoveries have been slowed by the drug-war classification of marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, which for 40 years has mostly limited the single source of official government research marijuana to researchers studying marijuana’s dangers, not its potential benefits. The Obama Administration could reschedule it – through a recommendation by the FDA to the DEA – but Obama and Holder have said they’d rather see Congress do it, like that’s going to happen. I asked Howard Koh, assistant secretary of HHS about it Saturday at a seminar in Wellesley, and he was particularly guarded in his response, acknowledging there had been recent meetings on the topic, but claiming the FDA still has mostly anecdotes, not enough hard data, to change its evaluation. A full official study of the medical marijuana research hasn’t been done since 1999, he said.

But research won’t wait on the FDA. With recreational marijuana legal in two states, and medical marijuana legal in 27, scientists don’t have to apply to the feds to get access to marijuana. The pharmaceutical companies are finally starting to catch on, and once some cannabis-related treatments make it to human trials – here or in other countries – this thing could catch fire.